


Home is Where the Band Plays

by TakingOverMidnight3482



Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [4]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Ray is a good dad, Reggie figures out what home is, even if he doesn't know Reggie considers him one, found family trope, inner thoughts, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:36:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26507584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakingOverMidnight3482/pseuds/TakingOverMidnight3482
Summary: Reggie had just always kind of thought that…his house would be right there. The stuff he’d left behind, the books and records and tapes. But it was gone. His parents, arguing and all, gone.And maybe he should be grateful. And in a way, he was.
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina & Reggie, Reggie & Ray Molina
Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925116
Comments: 51
Kudos: 986





	Home is Where the Band Plays

**Author's Note:**

> This one was really soothing to write, actually. I enjoyed doing it. I really like the idea of Reggie hanging out with Ray not because he wants to be his friend, but because he's the kind of father figure he really wants. 
> 
> My main headcanons that come into play here: 
> 
> Reggie using the beach as an escape/safe space
> 
> That when the guys accidentally pass through someone, they can get a general feeling for the person's demeanor (evidenced by Reggie commenting on how Ray seemed nice after he walked through him in the show)
> 
> Reggie plays with his flannel when he's anxious/upset
> 
> That Ray really, really likes the guys, despite never having met them (also kinda canon, based on how often he mentions them)

Reggie didn’t exactly have the most understanding or present parents growing up. He knew that, had known that since he was old enough to understand the words they were flinging at each other. Hell, the whole neighborhood probably knew some of the choice phrases that came out of his house during the late hours of the night when his mother was laying into his father about being out so often. It was a little embarrassing at times, waiting for the bus and knowing that all the kids around him knew what angry words his mother had shouted the night before.

So when the chance came for Reggie to leave with the band, he didn’t hesitate. He packed a bag and a backpack and left without even a note – at the time, he wondered how long it would be before they even noticed he wasn’t home. He’d once spent a full week at Luke’s before they started calling around for him.

So no, Reggie didn’t have a stable home environment. His mother wasn’t all bad – she at least made sure he got fed most nights, even if she did make snide remarks about how he never deserved the cheap meals in front of him. His father, on the other hand…well, being a ghost had some advantages in the bruising and scarring department, at the very least, in that they had carried none over to the afterlife.

Reggie was grateful of one thing and one thing only: that he hadn’t had siblings to bear the same burden he had his whole life. It had been lonely growing up, sure, especially with one parent physically abusing you and another doing it verbally. But it meant that, when he left, he had no one left at home to worry about.

And then he died.

The first thing he’d thought of when Julie had told them that it had been 25 years was, _I hope they got the divorce._ The second had been him wondering if either of them was even still alive. Not that he wished anything terrible on them; they were still his parents, no matter how much he hated them at times.

And his house was gone, so he couldn’t even check.

It left a weird kind of hole in his heart that he couldn’t bring himself to mention to the guys, especially after Luke pointed out that he shouldn’t even really be missing them in the first place. They’d argued and fought and hurt him constantly, after all.

But he did.

Miss them.

Not in a warm, sentimental kind of way. Reggie had just always kind of thought that…his house would be right there. The stuff he’d left behind, the books and records and tapes. But it was gone. His parents, arguing and all, gone.

And maybe he should be grateful. And in a way, he was.

He couldn’t be touched by anyone but Luke and Alex, and they’d never done a thing in their lives (or afterlives) to hurt him the way his parents had. Their touches were gentle, friendly, comforting.

But he missed the idea of parents as a whole.

He realized that the second morning they were there, when he popped into the house out of curiosity and found Ray humming the song Julie had been playing on the piano the morning prior. He was bustling around the kitchen, fixing a pot of coffee and peering into the fridge, and he was wearing house slippers. House slippers. His face was unkempt, and he was yawning every now and then, and his voice, when he started quietly singing the song under his breath, was raspy and a little off key.

Reggie felt warmth from the man. He’d felt it when Ray had walked through him accidentally, and he felt it now, sitting on the kitchen counter and watching the man move with ease around the room. He felt like what a dad should be. Like a dad Reggie wanted.

Wished he’d had.

The first time he thought that, he’d felt so guilty that he immediately left, popping back to the beach and taking a deep breath. As a kid, the beach was his escape. He could get lost in the waves all day, exploring the rocks and dunes and finding crabs in the tide pools. As he got older, he turned more to music, but the beach was always there.

It was the thing he could turn to now, when he couldn’t exactly play mystery music all the time. He couldn’t quite feel the waves themselves, but he could feel the motion of them against his feet, the coldness of the water. He spent two hours just standing there that first time, before Alex finally found him.

He’d said nothing, just grabbed Reggie’s shoes from the sand, draped an arm around his shoulders, and waited with him in the water until he was ready to go.

~~

The second time Reggie realized that Ray was the dad he’d really wanted was when he was getting ready to take Carlos to baseball practice.

“They won’t let me on bat,” Carlos had been complaining, scowling down at his water bottle as he filled it at the fridge (modern technology was a _whole_ other thing Reggie was still trying to process). “I know I’m good at it, you and Julie practiced with me all last summer, but they keep putting me on third. _Third_ , Dad.”

Reggie had no idea what was so bad about third, and clearly Ray didn’t either, because the man had looked more than a little confused. “Have you asked to bat?”

Carlos’ nose had wrinkled and he’d screwed on the lid of his bottle. “Yeah, but they always put me at the end of the lineup, so I always go last, and we’re always out before I can get up there.”

Ray had hummed and stocked a couple granola bars into his bag. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I’ll talk to them, okay? I know you’re good at batting, you just have to prove it to them. No better way to prove it than by doing it, right?”

And that? Well, that was advice Reggie could get behind. _Had_ gotten behind, actually. But the advice wasn’t what got him. It was how gently Ray had spoken to Carlos, how kind he’d been, instead of demeaning. Instead of telling him to be better constantly, never telling him what he actually did right, only telling him what he did wrong, and how much he did wrong.

Reggie had left as they did, struggling with the phantom ache in his chest. Back to the beach, where the waves left him calm and chilled, and then Luke was the one bringing him home, a soothing hand on his back, thumb circling.

~~

The third time, Reggie stayed.

He stayed, and he watched Ray clean up the party that he’d set up for Julie. It was late, nearing one am, and Julie and Carlos were asleep. Luke and Alex were MIA, probably searching for Willie or something to do, but Reggie had stayed, telling them he wanted to hang with Ray. They’d rolled their eyes a little, but left in good nature.

“You’d be proud of her,” Ray was saying to the air, and Reggie knew he was talking to his wife. He wished sometimes that he could relay the message – Ray talked to her a lot. “She’s really come out of her shell. Those boys, I…”

He paused, one hand on a pile of paper plates and another clinging to a trash bag. “I swear you sent them, love,” he whispered, shutting his eyes. A lump appeared in Reggie’s throat. “You must have sent them. They came when she needed them the most, and I…I wish I could thank them. I wish I could thank you for them.”

Reggie’s smile was wobbily. His knee was going a thousand miles an hour, and his fingers were twisted in his flannel. His father had never talked to his mother like that. She had never talked to him like that. He wanted to tell Ray that he’d needed Julie as much as she needed them, but he couldn’t.

He wanted to bolt, but he stayed.

Ray was chuckling as he shoveled pizza boxes into the bag. “I swear, if those boys ever needed to be adopted, I’d do it in a heartbeat. They’ve given me back so much, how could I not? I wish you could see how they make her smile.”

The tears slipped from Reggie’s eyes before he could stop them and he dragged his knees up against his chest, wrapping his arms around them tightly. He pressed his nose into his knees and watched Ray through blurred vision.

Ray was safe.

Julie was home. Julie was a home he’d never had. He thought, maybe, at the beginning, that the way he’d felt about her was the way Luke did, and it scared him a little. Because he’d always sworn to himself he’d never let their band be torn apart by a girl – or a guy, for that matter.

He’d realized when he started being around Ray more that Julie was the sister he’d never gotten. The sister he’d always wanted. That she and Carlos were the siblings he’d only dreamed of.

Luke and Alex were his brothers. There was not a doubt in his soul about that. They were his home, would always be his home.

He supposed, though, watching Ray, that a person – or ghost – could have more than one home if they really wanted. It made him think of the cheesy saying that his Nana had over her entryway when he was growing up: Home is where the heart is.

His heart was in so many places.

Home for Reggie had never been his physical house. It was the beach. It was the feeling of a bass in his hands, the strings cutting into his fingers, the strap hanging from his shoulder. It was his flannel tight around his waist, Luke’s arm around his shoulders, Alex’s smile when he played. It was the grungy, dark basements they’d crashed in on the road with other up and coming musicians, sharing hot dogs and combs and lyrics late into the nights and early into the mornings.

It was Ray, bustling around the kitchen at 6 am, making breakfast for Julie and Carlos before school. It was Carlos, constantly popping into his mother’s studio with the excuse of using the bathroom, but Reggie saw how he let his fingers drift wistfully over the piano as he was coming and going. It was Julie, her fingers cascading over the piano keys in a way that Reggie had never been able to mimic, the way her eyes shut when she was really feeling a note, how she always had a rainbow somewhere on her person, even when she wasn’t trying to.

He stayed, wishing only that he could tell Ray how much he loved his family. 

~~

The way Julie hugged was home. Alex’s forehead pressed against his own, Julie’s fingers twisted in Reggie’s shirt, Luke’s arm firm across his back, where it belonged. Reggie’s own hands, curled in Luke’s jacket. It was right. It was safe.

“I like this,” he choked out, tears streaming down his face. He didn’t bother to stop them.

Julie’s smile was bright, Alex and Luke’s soft, and they were all crying too. She pulled them back into the hug, her arm curling firm around him in the way that Luke’s did. “Me too,” she said.

He knew she didn’t mean it the same way he did – that was okay. He’d tell her, some day. He’d tell them all: Ray, Carlos, maybe even Julie’s slightly nutty aunt. And even though he was sure they knew, he’d tell Alex and Luke too, because they might know, but they didn’t know how much.

How much he liked having people to call home.


End file.
